Giving Day Follow Up: After the Event is Over

A giving day is a 24-hour online giving marathon meant to bring communities together and empower nonprofits. But the aim of most, if not all, giving days is to provide a springboard for nonprofits. Community foundations and other giving day hosts sink countless hours into running these events with the hope that nonprofits will leverage the one-day event to reach new donors, engage people with their causes on an ongoing basis and build capacity. And that’s why giving day follow up is just as important as what you do on a giving day.

So, whether you’ve just wrapped up your first giving day or you’re a seasoned veteran, here are next steps you can take to turn the giving day on Mightycause into year-round gains for your nonprofit.

Debrief

After any campaign, it’s important to meet with your fundraising team. While the event is still fresh, you should schedule a meeting to go over your efforts, results, what worked, and what didn’t.

Regroup and discuss what worked well in your campaign. Whether it was hitting your fundraising goal, getting awesome engagement on social media or even something internally that made the giving day smooth sailing, find the bright spots! Identify them so you can replicate them in your next campaign.

Identify Pain Points

The flip side to finding the bright spots is identifying pain points, both for your nonprofits and your donors. Compile any feedback you get from donors and talk to your staff about their experience of the giving day. From coordinating better internally to communicating better with your donor base, there’s always room for improvement with each campaign.

Access and Store Your Donor Data

One of the main benefits to participating in a giving day is picking up new donors. The added exposure of the day, the media push from the host, and philanthropic individuals actively searching for new nonprofits to support means that you can reach lots of new people with your work. So, before you follow up, pull all your donation data from Mightycause.

Managing Your Donations

If you use another program to manage your donations, you can upload the donation report into your donor management system.

However, if you don’t use an outside system, you can use Mightycause for that! And if you’re looking for donor records and CRM tools, Mightycause Advanced might be a great tool for your nonprofit. Advanced subscribers gain access to our Supporters tool, which you can use to sort donors, track their donations and other activities for your nonprofit (such as volunteering and peer-to-peer fundraising), add custom tags for easy segmentation, and more. You can get a free 30-day trial of Mightycause Advanced to ensure it’s the right fit for your needs, and we have pricing to suit nonprofits of all sizes and budgets. Learn more about Mightycause Premium.

Giving Day Follow Up

On Mightycause, we send donors a tax receipt and thank you right after they make their donation. But to ensure donors feel appreciated and engaged with your nonprofit, you’ll want to go well beyond that with your follow up!

Come up with a plan to follow up with your giving day donors. Things like sending a handwritten thank you card, calling them personally to let them know how much you appreciate their contribution, or just a personalized email thanking them can go a long way. You can also get creative and film a video to say thank you and post to social media and your Mightycause page. (It doesn’t have to be a Hollywood production! Just grab a smartphone, gather your staff, and film a short video with everyone saying thanks.)

A quick, friendly and meaningful follow up is the key to turning one-time donors into retuning donors. Learn more about donor engagement!

Close the Loop

Running an effective campaign doesn’t end when you’ve hit your goal and said your thank yous. An important part of ensuring that donating to your nonprofit is a gratifying experience for your donors is closing the loop on your campaign. That means following up to let your donor base know what their contributions helped provide for your nonprofit.

When you’re fundraising for something specific (such as building repairs or a large purchase that will help you in your work), closing the loop is as simple as letting donors know your nonprofit was able to fund the project. But if you were fundraising for your general fund, closing the loop can be done by updating your donors on the progress you’ve been able to make as an organization since the giving day.

Start Stewarding

Stewarding is the process of creating long-lasting philanthropic relationships with your donors. It’s a year-round, ongoing process of getting to know donors, moving them through your pipeline, and building relationships.

Come up with a plan to follow up with your donors on an ongoing basis. This can start with sending a personal email to ask how they came to your nonprofit (or a survey), find out what their interest in your work is, and learn what about your work speaks to them. You may want to then invite them to your next event, get them signed up for your newsletter, ask them to follow your nonprofit on social media, or even invite them to become a volunteer.

Communicating with donors outside of “asks” makes it more likely that your donors will be there for your nonprofit when you do have an ask.

Use Mightycause’s Resources

Mightycause’s mission as a company is to lift up nonprofits. In keeping with that mission, we have lots of free content available that can help you improve your fundraising and build skills.

Read our blog (and sign up for the blog newsletter to make sure you don’t miss any content!)

Register for #GivingTuesday

Now that your nonprofit is a seasoned giving day veteran, it’s a no-brainer to participate in the biggest giving day in the world: #GivingTuesday. #GivingTuesday is a global day of giving. It takes place annually on the Tuesday after Black Friday and Cyber Monday to refocus on philanthropy and giving back. Mightycause hosts our own #GivingTuesday event on our platform with prizes, friendly competition and a slew of resources to help your nonprofit make the most of this incredible day.

Registration opens on July 17th, so save the date and make a point of registering!

Upgrade to Mightycause Premium

You’ve seen the power of online fundraising and crowdfunding. And you can take the growth you experienced on your giving day and run with it by upgrading to Mightycause Premium! Mightycause Advanced will give you all the tools you need to fundraise online successfully year-round, with no platform free.

Sign up for a demo, get a free 30-day trial, and see how Mightycause Advanced can help you take your fundraising to the next level.